A really nice anti-war film was King of Hearts (1966), directed by Philippe de Broca, and starring a young Alan Bates as a Scottish, kilt-wearing, ornithologist whom the British Army mistakes for a bomb/explosives expert. Incredible study on the insanity of war. The closing scene where Bates sheds his kilt and implements of war, left walking naked, he picks up a bird cage (his true love), and decides to stay with the “locals” as the King of Hearts (the “locals” self-identified as different cards in the deck when questioned by German soldiers. When it was Bates’ turn, he answered; “the King of Hearts”, and the locals go off, crying; “the king is back!”) is a well done closing statement on what one man believed to be the more “sane” of choices.

In some ways, KoHs is the humanistic 180 degree inversion of Shenandoah (1965), starring Jimmy Stewart. Stewart gets unwittingly sucked into war in Shenandoah. In KoHs, Bates willingly, and consciously gets sucked out of his war, hiding in plain sight among his new found “friends”.

One of the only American films that ever made the after-midnight bill at the local foreign film theater, just off campus at my university (classic, old ornate theater, constructed in the opera style; excellent acoustics) was the original, unedited version of Arthur Penn’s Little Big Man. Excellent satirical study on imperialism and hypocrisy. Human Beans, indeed. If only ARod had the nobility of Old Lodge Skins; “Today is a good day to die”. LOL.

And just for sheer excellence in neo-classic film-making, Federico Fellini’s La Strada (The Road, 1954), starring Anthony Quinn, Richard Basehart, and Guillietta Masini, and produced by Dino de Laurentiis and Carlo Ponti, is well worth a watch. If you see no other Fellini film, this is a good one to check out. Filmed in post-WWII Italy, the (sur) realism of war-torn Europe cannot help but bubble up into the story, giving the film this mystical quality which will subliminally leave you asking; “what is this?”, nagging away in the back of your mind. Incredible piece of complex, multi-layered film.

Much attention has been given here, rightfully so, to Japanese film, which I also love, but there is also a nice collection forming out of mainland China (and beyond martial arts flicks). For an excellent character study, set in a harshly stratified social setting, I highly recommend Raise the Red Lantern (1991), directed by Zhang Yimou (and everything else he has ever shot, with maybe, the hatchet job Disney/Miramax did on the long-delayed US release of Hero as the lone exception).

Originally banned in mainland China, I actually saw Red Lantern in a Beijing movie theater shortly after the ban was lifted (and not long after Tiananmen Square). The Beijing audience was stunned by the sheer power of this simple, but well put together film. After the final credits finished, nobody moved or spoke for the longest time. One of the more fascinating (unplanned) moments of silence I ever witnessed. It was like watching 70 years of silent oppression being lifted from them…

Good film can be extremely powerful. Great film remains powerful across the generational boundaries.

]]>By: Old Gatorhttp://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/07/25/quote-of-the-day-rosebud/comment-page-1/#comment-538839
Thu, 25 Jul 2013 20:17:09 +0000http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/?p=488104#comment-538839Duhh-uhh, he forgets Paths of Glory. (Smack!) I’m not going to argue that one – going one up and up between POG and Gojira makes about as much sense as trying to drink coffee with a fork.

And of course there’s Johnny Got His Gun, by my favorite blacklisted screenwriter, Dalton Trumbo. It’s not overall in the same league as POG but it’s still a pretty memorable film. You get to see Donald Sutherland in a cameo as Jesus. What more could you ask for?

]]>By: moogrohttp://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/07/25/quote-of-the-day-rosebud/comment-page-1/#comment-538821
Thu, 25 Jul 2013 20:04:34 +0000http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/?p=488104#comment-538821Most people don’t notice that Scott does a barrel-roll as he walks across the War Room while talking. Amazing that a movie can pull that off.
]]>By: moogrohttp://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/07/25/quote-of-the-day-rosebud/comment-page-1/#comment-538768
Thu, 25 Jul 2013 19:06:53 +0000http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/?p=488104#comment-538768Gate-ois: I think Paths of Glory is tied for Gojira for best anti-war film, for the non-allegorical set. And it gets another Kubrick on the list.
]]>By: yahmulehttp://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/07/25/quote-of-the-day-rosebud/comment-page-1/#comment-538708
Thu, 25 Jul 2013 17:49:07 +0000http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/?p=488104#comment-538708Thanks for the great posts, Gator. It’s like going to film school.

Shimura’s range was breathtaking. I loved him as much as Mifune, who was such a master of grand gestures that would have never worked for actors without his commanding presence.

My favorite scene in Samurai was when the villagers who live away from the main part of town refuse to fight unless their farms are protected, too. Shimada/Shimura firmly but calmly tells them that they will go along with the program. The villagers just look at him like, ‘screw you, man’ and Shimura draws his katana and just runs at them wordlessly. The panic on their faces as they scatter is priceless and Shimura gains their compliance without spilling a drop of blood. I can give myself goosebumps thinking about it.

The greatest pity is that Kubrick died before he could film Blood Meridian. No one else could have done it, and I doubt if anyone else ever will.

]]>By: Old Gatorhttp://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/07/25/quote-of-the-day-rosebud/comment-page-1/#comment-538679
Thu, 25 Jul 2013 17:31:06 +0000http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/?p=488104#comment-538679Yahmule: triple ditto on The Bad Sleep Well. The “cake scene” at the beginning of the film is widely regarded as a “how to” manual about filming a classic set piece.

Another great early one is Record of a Living Being, which also shows up as I Live in Fear, starring a young Mifune as a 70-year-old industrialist obsessed with the nuclear war he is sure is coming. I watched the entire film unaware that it was Mifune until the credits, which had less to do with the makeup than the mannerisms. What a performance! There’s a scene in there where he goes out to buy cold soft drinks for his grown children who are being interviewed at the courthouse as they try to get him committed to a mental hospital. Kurosawa really knew how to tear your heart out and jump up and down on it and somehow still left you feeling exhilarated by the experience.

As far as the American Godzilla, I went to the local Sunshine of the Spotless Mind clinic in the old Bufogenesis building to have my memory wiped clean of it, but Maria Pitillo’s performance was so execrable that it keeps coming back in my nightmares. I don’t think Jean Reno’s career ever recovered from it.

]]>By: Old Gatorhttp://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/07/25/quote-of-the-day-rosebud/comment-page-1/#comment-538672
Thu, 25 Jul 2013 17:19:26 +0000http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/?p=488104#comment-538672Histy – ever seen the “western” remake of Rashomon called The Outrage? It was ackcherley pretty good as reformulations of Kurosawa films go. Laurence Harvey, Paul Newman, Claire Bloom, Edward G. Robinson and…oh, this is priceless – a youngish William Shatner. Even with Martin Ritt directing, it’s hard to ruin a film with a cast like that. Try it if you haven’t.

A couple of less well known (in America anyway) Kurosawa sleepers you must be sure to see: Ikiru (“To Live”), with a towering performance by the wonderful wonderful Takashi Shimura, owner of the most beautiful sad face in Japan and surely its greatest film actor of all time. Another one is Do des ka den, about a group of World War II survivors eking out an existence in the bombed out ruins of Tokyo. Heartbreaking, gorgeous, quirky film.

I also forgot to list two other Shohei Imamura films (after Kurosawa, I think, the finest director of the golden age of Japanese cinema): The Ballad of Narayama, about starving families in a medieval Japanese village where the ambient struggles between warlords has ruined the economy – and the horribly drastic steps they take to survive, and Dr. Akagi, his late masterpiece, about a well-meaning quack on a small island in the Inland Sea in the closing days of WWII. Another unforgettable film.

]]>By: yahmulehttp://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/07/25/quote-of-the-day-rosebud/comment-page-1/#comment-538665
Thu, 25 Jul 2013 17:12:05 +0000http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/?p=488104#comment-538665I love Kurosawa. One of his films that gets less notice than others is The Bad Sleep Well. Textured and prescient.

I absolutely love Godzilla. I will never forgive Roland Emmerich and that simpleton Dean Devlin for the disgraceful and utterly disdainful Jurassic Park ripoff remake. Just thinking about that movie pisses me off. It has been a pleasure to boycott Emmerich’s brainless overwrought garbage ever since.

If anyone wants to see a damn fun giant monster movie, get to the theaters before Pacific Rim leaves the screen. Benecio Del Toro just killed it. The enormous scale and scope is well captured. The action sequences are exciting and you can actually follow what’s happening. There is more of a sense of actual heroism in this film than you find in half a dozen random super hero movies combined.

I concur that there must be a Coen Brothers movie in the mix, OG, but I have trouble choosing one. “Blood Simple”, my first experience with those scamps, had quite an effect.

]]>By: km9000http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/07/25/quote-of-the-day-rosebud/comment-page-1/#comment-538610
Thu, 25 Jul 2013 16:21:00 +0000http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/?p=488104#comment-538610AMC is to classic movies what MTV is to music videos.
]]>By: historiophiliachttp://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/07/25/quote-of-the-day-rosebud/comment-page-1/#comment-538603
Thu, 25 Jul 2013 16:16:28 +0000http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/?p=488104#comment-538603Thanks, OG. Rashomon is a fav from years back, so I’m working through the others — now that I have access.
]]>By: Old Gatorhttp://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/07/25/quote-of-the-day-rosebud/comment-page-1/#comment-538590
Thu, 25 Jul 2013 16:10:17 +0000http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/?p=488104#comment-538590Histy: if you’re planning a Kurosawa summer, I really really really recommend that you get ahold of Stuart Galbraith’s (yes, he’s related to JKG) monumental study of Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune, The Emperor and the Wolf. This may well be the finest critical biography of any cinema artist(s) ever written. It’s huge but Galbraith’s style is sublime and seductively readable – you breeze through it in a few days once it gets its hooks into you. I couldn’t put it down. And it covers everything you need to put Kurosawa-san and Mifune in historical and artistic perspective, including a terrific chapter on the history of the Japanese studio system and the effect of the war on Kurosawa’s evolving directorial and authorial genius. If you read it film-by-film the master’s works will blossom like Brobdingnagian lotuses for you. Here’s the link: http://www.amazon.com/Emperor-Wolf-Kurosawa-Toshiro-Mifune/dp/0571199828/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1374768575&sr=1-1&keywords=emperor+and+the+wolf
]]>By: historiophiliachttp://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/07/25/quote-of-the-day-rosebud/comment-page-1/#comment-538540
Thu, 25 Jul 2013 15:48:16 +0000http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/?p=488104#comment-538540So, then, a sex tape leak. Good to know.
]]>By: Old Gatorhttp://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/07/25/quote-of-the-day-rosebud/comment-page-1/#comment-538539
Thu, 25 Jul 2013 15:47:54 +0000http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/?p=488104#comment-538539“Arodian” is a wonderful adjective. Let’s to the Webster’s orifice queeckly!
]]>By: paperlionshttp://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/07/25/quote-of-the-day-rosebud/comment-page-1/#comment-538536
Thu, 25 Jul 2013 15:46:36 +0000http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/?p=488104#comment-538536Did they win the fight against the shit? Sometimes, shit just don’t stay dead.
]]>By: Old Gatorhttp://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/07/25/quote-of-the-day-rosebud/comment-page-1/#comment-538534
Thu, 25 Jul 2013 15:45:59 +0000http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/?p=488104#comment-538534The Coca Cola company is still demanding an answer.
]]>By: Old Gatorhttp://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/07/25/quote-of-the-day-rosebud/comment-page-1/#comment-538523
Thu, 25 Jul 2013 15:42:46 +0000http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/?p=488104#comment-538523Agreed, mein Fuhr…heh heh, I mean, stex…

To which I must add:

Godzilla (the original, sans Raymond Burr – which, like the aforementioned Seven Samurai, was actually a Kurosawa film and the greatest anti-war movie ever made. Challenge me on that. I shall justify it.

Miller’s Crossing.- like stex I cannot abide a list without Kubrick, but I can’t abide one without the Coen Brothers either. That Jon Polito wasn’t nominated for an academy award for his performance as Johnny Caspar was as big a travesty as Donald Sutherland not being nominated for Ordinary People. Fuck the academy.

Black Rain The brilliant Shohei Imamura film about Hiroshima survivors now living in a rural village trying to lead normal lives fifteen years later, not the mildly amusing Michael Douglas film. Its re-creation of the bombing itself is so convincing and harrowing that most subsequent films on the same subject bought licenses to snip scenes from it rather than even try to re-create it again. But that’s not the most powerful part of it. When the hibakusha girl, many years later, notices her hair is beginning to fall out, it just crushes your heart.

The Spirit of the Beehive (El Espiritu de la Colmena) – the monthly movie van is coming to the little rural Spanish town in the early 1930s to show Frankenstein. One of the great Fernando Fernan Gomez performances and one of the finest Spanish films of all time. A precursor to and inspiration for another masterpiece, Malick’s Days of Heaven. Hypnotic.

Le Samourai Alain Delon achieves immortality in this one – it’s too bad no one wears hats anymore ’cause if we did, we’d all adjust them the way he does. Best supporting actor nomination for a canary that, after being made a star in this film, perished in a studio fire. All of France wept.

The City of Lost Children – let’s hear it for the Octopus!

]]>By: yahmulehttp://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/07/25/quote-of-the-day-rosebud/comment-page-1/#comment-538507
Thu, 25 Jul 2013 15:33:08 +0000http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/?p=488104#comment-538507It has been far too long since I’ve seen Lawrence of Arabia. I need to watch it again. What an amazing cast.
]]>By: Francisco (FC)http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/07/25/quote-of-the-day-rosebud/comment-page-1/#comment-538505
Thu, 25 Jul 2013 15:31:11 +0000http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/?p=488104#comment-538505A-Rod will do Centaur modeling when he retires.
]]>By: historiophiliachttp://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/07/25/quote-of-the-day-rosebud/comment-page-1/#comment-538503
Thu, 25 Jul 2013 15:29:28 +0000http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/?p=488104#comment-538503Hulu Plus has the Criterion Collection. I’m starting w/ Kurosawa and working my way slowly through…in my “spare” time. :)
]]>By: Gamera the Bravehttp://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/07/25/quote-of-the-day-rosebud/comment-page-1/#comment-538502
Thu, 25 Jul 2013 15:29:20 +0000http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/?p=488104#comment-538502Ghosts yes
Demons yes
Shit – already done my Mike Rowe on “Dirty Jobs”
]]>By: churchoftheperpetuallyoutragedhttp://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/07/25/quote-of-the-day-rosebud/comment-page-1/#comment-538496
Thu, 25 Jul 2013 15:25:54 +0000http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/?p=488104#comment-538496He is and does, he also gives lots of money to the Boys and Girls club. But you don’t hear a lot of that reported (like when he saved a girl from being hit by a car in Boston) because he’s the devil incarnate.
]]>By: churchoftheperpetuallyoutragedhttp://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/07/25/quote-of-the-day-rosebud/comment-page-1/#comment-538494
Thu, 25 Jul 2013 15:25:00 +0000http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/?p=488104#comment-538494Is there a reason more of those movies aren’t available via netflix/hulu/amazon prime? I can’t count the number of times i’ve missed the beginning of Twelve Angry Men because I happen to come across it on AMC.
]]>By: yahmulehttp://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/07/25/quote-of-the-day-rosebud/comment-page-1/#comment-538492
Thu, 25 Jul 2013 15:24:43 +0000http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/?p=488104#comment-538492And let us not forget Dick “Dr Strangeglove” Stuart.

:~)

]]>By: historiophiliachttp://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/07/25/quote-of-the-day-rosebud/comment-page-1/#comment-538490
Thu, 25 Jul 2013 15:23:59 +0000http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/?p=488104#comment-538490Number one is Lawrence of Arabia, which I was fortunate enough to see at a big movie palace in Columbus after it was remastered. The dunes were breathtaking. And, of course, the movie is fabulous.

I love old films.

]]>By: yahmulehttp://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/07/25/quote-of-the-day-rosebud/comment-page-1/#comment-538489
Thu, 25 Jul 2013 15:23:21 +0000http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/?p=488104#comment-538489The first time I saw Dr Strangelove, I was way too young and it went over my head. I watched it some 20 years later and loved it. Kubrick has done some very memorable work.
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